Diving, Sense-Sharing, and Exploitation of Gifted Savants (GITS 9-12)

Summary:


Episode 9:
In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of the police superintendent that Section 9 helped to thwart, the general society has had a regenerated interest in the Laughing Man case. In order to pool their resources and potentially discover more information about the Laughing Man incident in general, several members of the populace decide to attend a chat room in which to discuss the case, its several individual incidents, and the significance of the effects it has had on society. Major Kusanagi involves herself as one of the central attendees discussing the case, though she disguises herself with an alternative persona.

One of the first things for the group to suggest is that the person who committed the acts of terrorism in the past and the person responsible for the recent assassination attempt are not the same individual. The basis for this reasoning is that the previous actions of the Laughing Man were relegated to corporate terrorism, and the destruction of businesses he/she thought were immoral and corrupt, but the recent events escalated rather quickly from a public disapproval of the interceptor business at the press conference to a declaration of assassination, a jump that seems uncharacteristic of the previous persona.

Eventually, one of the attendees shares that he had hacked into the assassination event scene at the time it was occurring and he could tell that the people were being manipulated not because of a virus directly affecting them, but because they had previously been manipulated to have wanted to do it. The only people being hacked were the security personnel. On top of that, he had discovered a server registered to Nanao (the one who had been framed as the responsible party for the Laughing Man incident, though only the police new that previously) and found that the server had detailed information regarding corporate terrorist acts. These acts were characterized by the use of the same type of virus utilized in the assassination incident, and yet, the assassination attempt itself wasn't among any of the detailed plans within the server, so it leaves people wondering why he would have suddenly turned murderer. It seems more likely to them that Nanao himself was being manipulated by the initial assassination threat as well, making people begin to wonder who was behind the threat of the superintendent.

At this point, Major Kusanagi hacks into the much more knowledgeable attendee's brain and begins having a private conversation, asking whether or not he has any other information. He reveals that he has a copy of the virus that was used against the police force on that day and he gives it to her. Subsequently, he leaves the chat room and the conversation turns to whether or not the incidents overall are part of a social phenomenon or whether they are in fact connected in some way. That is, they wanted to discover whether there is a link behind the culprits of each incident beyond simply, "They were following along with the ideology of the Laughing Man."

Kusanagi then voices her opinion that the 2 actions involving the kidnapping of a CEO and the threat of the superintendent are the only actions that may have been connected in any way and that it isn't certain whether said perpetrator is even the "original" person that showed up on television. At that moment, the host of the chat room force-transfers Kusanagi to separate room that looks like a library, and when she sees the host and follows him around the corner, she comes face to face with the Laughing Man himself, wearing the same guise that hid his identity from the cameras beforehand.

Then we see the Major driving a sports car with Batou in the passenger seat, and she is irritated because she couldn't "trace it". Then, since Batou was telling a story, he gets irritated that was "diving" the whole time and says he won't repeat himself. The final thought she has is, "Phenomenon created by copycats with no original. Two pieces aren't fitting the puzzle..."

Episode 10:
6 cases of murders have popped up within the local city in which people are killed very slowly, their skin being removed while they are still alive. The team starts to devise profiles for why someone might commit these crimes, but as people begin bringing up cults and/or sex crimes, Batou speaks up and says that he thinks it isn't any of those, but rather a sense of duty (though he doesn't elaborate as to why he thinks this).

Chief Aramaki then explains that they've received files from the American Empire that Mako Amoretti of the American Imperial Navy is likely the killer as he bounced from one from to another in the world war and was discharged at his own request and his whereabouts have been unknown. According to them, he was involved in a case that bears a striking resemblance to the current case.
The CIA has put in a request that they quickly apprehend the individual and then turn him over to them. At this point, two CIA representatives make an appearance at the meeting.

Batou appears to be supremely agitated about the case and it seems that he knows more than he is letting on. Kusanagi notices this and warns Togusa to stop him if he begins to act irrationally during the case. We also see a flashback in which Batou is working in the field somewhere and stumbles upon some people have who been killed in a similar fashion to the current case.

In the midst of a meeting between the American and Japanese representatives, it is reported that the killer has been distributing records of his killings, both from his perspective and from the perspective of the skinned and killed person. Upon hearing about this change of events, the representatives from both parties are shocked and appalled, but Chief Aramaki and Major Kusanagi, both also present at the time, notice that the CIA reps have no reaction to the news, indicating that they were expectant of such behavior.

While Kusanagi distracts one of the CIA members with the most recent footage of the killings (in order to ask him about his thoughts on it), Kusanagi instructs their information expert Ishikawa to break into the CIA records and look up information about Amoretti. In the process, he discovers a report about "Project Sunset" in which American agents purposefully committed atrocities in hostile environments during a war that Batou was involved in (though with a different organization at the time). Amoretti and his associates would move into a village, become friends with the people there, and then murder the women and children in horrific ways. Batou once encountered one of the villages they had visited and was instilled with a rage against whoever had done it.

Batou eventually reveals that it was his job to ascertain the identity of the killers and put a stop to them, so he has a personal vendetta against the killer. After obtaining one of the killer's discs early from a vendor, they are able to ascertain the identity of the newest victim ahead of time and make it to the scene of the crime, saving the victim.

Batou soon sorts out that the killer is distributing the discs in areas connected to an underground sewer system, so he pursues him down there with Togusa in tow. When Togusa realizes that Batou is losing control of himself, he tries to stop him, but Batou runs ahead and Togusa, without the same caliber of cybernetic enhancements to his own body, is unable to reach him. Batou eventually corners Amoretti, but it turns out that Amoretti is only too ready to die, fulfilling his mission to the end (he had become psychotic). Batou unloads his rounds on the guy, but purposefully misses and turns him over because its his job as a policeman, and because he has abandoned the war in his mind, unlike Amoretti.

Turns out him killing Amoretti was always the CIA reps' job as they hadn't even purchased 3 return tickets. Kusanagi comforts Batou by reminding him that at least he saved one of the victims this last time.

Episode 11:
One of the government's health organizations' databases was hacked into by an extremely skilled individual who is likely even better than Major Kusanagi, and the organizations in question haven't released any kind of request for re-obtaining the data stolen. Members of Section 9 were able to trace the hack to a certain building, but beyond that, they know nothing.

The building itself is a government facility in which people (mostly children) who have experienced an illness called Closed Shell Syndrome are cared for. What's more, the circuits in the building are usually kept isolated from external sites, so it would make it virtually impossible for people to enter systems off the campus from within and vice versa. Because there are concerns that the Ministry of Health and Welfare (who owns the facility) is into something dubious, they don't want to let them know Section 9 is gunning for them, so the Chief and the Major instruct Togusa to go in undercover and find out what he can.

Upon arriving, Togusa finds a child being handled aggressively by employees as he cries about how it was "his turn to go online today." Marta, the facilities director, instructs the employees to take the boy away, but the boy presumably hacks into the mens' cyberbrains and overloads their systems. Smoke puffs out of protective headbands the men are wearing and they fall to the ground. The boy dashes to the exit only to be stopped by a fully augmented combat cyborg who renders him unconscious and takes over the task of the other two men. Marta tries to comfort Togusa as a "new recruit" by telling him that the boy is accustomed to normalcy. There is a rule that someone can only connect to an external system under the supervision of a staff member, and they happened to have lost their external connection in a particular room the other day, which made it impossible for the boy to go online, hence, the tantrum.

Marta explains that the people with Closed Shell Syndrome are often pictured as not being compatible with cyberbrain technology, when in fact the issue is more that they are too compatible. They can effortlessly comprehend and manipulate cyberized tech. After too many hours on the net, they will try rigorously not to leave. If diving with someone else, they will attempt to brain dive and share memories and experiences. As they walk through the facility, a group of children stare at a computer screen, muttering to themselves in some kind of unintelligible computer-speak.

Marta then illustrates to Togusa that the company is exploiting the children with especially powerful skills to craft genius-inspired computer-defense barriers that governments will sometimes adopt. She is quite confident that if she left them alone, they would continue to work on building the mazes merely because they enjoy doing so. Togusa is then charged with watching over a particular child who sits in a wheelchair and hardly responds to stimuli, reacting only when someone takes away his left-catcher's baseball glove. Togusa tries to foster some interaction with one of the other kids, one that acts like a bit of a leader for the rest.

Another kid mentions something about a "boss" coming back to the facility soon, and Togusa becomes interested in the news, though he can't seem to find out anything about it from the kids. He reports on all that he has discovered to Kusanagi and the others using a networking room in the facility and realizes that someone else has been using the same room for external access as well.

Soon thereafter, Marta leaves her office as Togusa is passing by...and after she turns the corner, he breaks into the office attempting to find new information. She eventually returns with the combat cyborg and uses him to stop Togusa. He manages to kill the cyborg with a magnum he had hidden, but Marta immediately blunts him over the head with a chair. Marta then links with the unconcious Togusa, discovers he is from Section 9, and then goes unconscious herself from an unknown cause. The wheelchair child who happens to be watching everything from the doorway then stands up.

Back with Kusanagi, one of their androids informs them that every terminal in the facility just went online and discovers that Section 9's surveillance van is being hacked by the facility. The wheelchair child is then shown explaining to the leader kid that he has been discovered from the outside and will have to leave the place since many grown-ups will be flooding the facility in a few moments. We can guess that he is the "boss" that the children were expecting. The leader kid understands that his memories will be wiped along with everyone else, but he simply asks the boss to leave him a clue, something to remember him by someday. The boss agrees and then departs. Togusa is eventually found, taken care of, and later gives a hand-drawn illustration of the boy with the wheelchair since he is sure that he was involved with the incident. When the group looks at the illustration, all they see is a drawing of the Laughing Man's logo, and they all look at Togusa, laughing that he was hacked, but concerned at who the actual culprit was.


Episode 12:
One of the Tachikomas (Batou's) sneaks out of the team's headquarters and goes exploring in the city. It runs into a girl named Miki looking for her pet dog Locky. The Tachikoma agrees to help her look for Locky, ends up "shaking hands" with Miki (and acting confused). The girl then suggests buying some food for Locky, pointing to a vendor, but the Tachikoma tells her it isn't a good idea after seeing a sign by the vendor reading "Cooked Dog" that the girl can't see. After finding another dog that wasn't Locky, the Tachikoma chucks the dog away and is confused when the girl gets upset over "mistreating" the animal.

The Tachikoma then ends up connecting with a detached cyberbrain lying amongst a ghetto vendor's wares out of curiosity, and accidentally brain dives into a numerous cluster of people that are all living inside one cluttered space.

Some policemen show up asking the girl questions about where she came from and what she is doing in such a dangerous place. Seeing that she is feeling uncomfortable, the Tachikoma adopts the voice of Chief Aramaki and pretends to be the girl's father, an aged war veteran who lives within a tank.

The two of them eventually come to the place where the girl thinks the dog will be, but it turns out to be a graveyard, and the reality is that the dog has already been dead for a while and the girl simply doesn't want people to know that she understands the dog is dead. She didn't want people to be worried about her feelings. The Tachikoma ends up having to confront the notion of death and understand its significance to Miki.

Back at headquarters, the team is conducting an analysis of the Tachikoma that got out and find that the reason it was behaving strangely was because it was being given natural oil that mixed with the hardware incorrectly such that components that stored memory were slipping into the oil and moving to different locations than they should have been. It was only because Batou uses that one Tachikoma exclusively.

After Togusa makes a comment about Batou treating them like pets, he gives him some grief about it, referring to them as "just machines" at which point all of the other Tachikoma spark up and express irritation from the statement, saying things like, "That's a discriminatory remark!" Togusa then discovers the detached cyberbrain that the Tachikoma took from the street vendor.

Later on, one of the team members has dived into the cyberbrain, but isn't coming out and isn't communicating with the team at all, but all of the group's tests leave them unable to discern any kind of attack pattern originating from the brain. The Major decides to go in (in opposition to her teammates' disapproval) and something goes wrong soon afterward, her "ghost" leaving her body and getting pulled into the device.

Upon looking around the simulated environment, she finds that there is a large crowd of people, including the unresponsive team member, who are navigating a series of corridors that move through and around a large theater room. The Major follows her team member into the movie, and the guy says to her, "Oh, hi Major. Nice to see you. This is a mind-blowing movie." Then Major Kusanagi looks at the film and tears start streaming down her face as she stares, transfixed.

She exits the theater and has a conversation with the man running the show, informing him that, contrary to his opinion of the film, a movie that has no beginning, no end, and merely evokes a sense of pure joy isn't a "real" experience and is merely a distraction from reality. She tells him that he should stop producing the film and let all of the people who are "trapped" within the cyberbrain go. The man argues that for some of the people watching the film, "misery will be waiting for them the instant they go back to reality." When he asks whether she is willing to accept responsibility for depriving these people of their dreams, she denies it, but replies that dreams are "meaningful when you work toward them in the real world. If you merely live within the dreams of other people, it's no different from being dead."

After leaving the cyberbrain, Ishikawa informs Kusanagi and Batou that the original director could never get people to faithfully generate his desired pieces, and that the ones that did get produced were never mainstream films, though they did develop cult followings. Eventually he holed himself up into the box, and, along with several other copies of the original, people would plug themselves in and stay inside until their bodies withered away. Police had been trying to search for these boxes for years, and Section 9 had just stumbled onto the original. They decide to put the director into a different cyberbrain box that can't go online (so it doesn't spread like it did before). Then they compile a list of people who regain consciousness as a result. Finally, the group is to arrest the vendor selling the box on suspicion of human trafficking.

Analysis:
One of the central elements the audience is exposed to in these episodes is the concept of "diving", the total immersion of one's consciousness into a digital environment. The mere concept seems like it would be an extremely efficient model for improving communication between people seeing as how people can achieve all of the same interpersonal communication that a person would otherwise experience in real life. The senses could be stimulated the same way they would be in the real world (possibly), and yet, we also have a hint that the process itself may not be as immersive as literally being two places at once (since Major Kusanagi feels at ease diving while driving in a sparse section of the highway - much like how people nowadays feel comfortable talking or texting using their cellphones while driving). That's not to make any judgments concerning whether such things should be legal, but merely that necessary comparisons must be drawn between one activity and the other. If cellphone use is permitted while in the middle of potentially hazardous activity (like driving), then more consideration must be given to the similar process of diving.

A significant difference in diving, however, lies in that it occupies much more of one's stimuli than any phone possibly could. For one thing, the combination of both sound and visual stimuli is more taxing on one's concentration compared to just talking (sound) or texting (visual). There is already a large amount of controversy surrounding texting with a phone, so it is obvious that visual attention is of the upmost importance when operating a motor vehicle. Another significant difference is that diving implies a full-body transition-experience. The visuals and sounds aren't coming from a localized device (where the sensory source is confined to a particular area), but rather, the stimuli can come from any direction, increasing the chance that the brain would be distracted much more intensely.

In this way, diving itself can become a more powerful method of escapist entertainment. Movies, video games, music videos, and media in general could be adapted for the full-digital environment, capable of immersing people ever more strongly into the world of the story. News broadcasts could potentially let you "experience" the news "live" by placing you in a recorded setting obtained by one of their "journalists".

The potential danger of this technology is outlined quite clearly in episode 12, when the people are drawn in to a film that never stops satisfying their insatiable desire for stimuli. If people forget to live in the real world, or if they similarly begin to believe that the fictional world is in fact a reality, then their efforts are being focused on people who lack souls or experiences that lack direct relevance to those people. It should be noted that fictional stories in media can only be of use when their content embodies a paradigm people can relate to or symbolism that people can connect to experiences they understand. If the content is never tied back to the real world in such a way as to ensure its productive usage, then the practical value of that content is "zeroed out". This danger is obviously relevant to Christians because Jesus instructs us to love people (second greatest commandment) and to bring God's love to them in the hope that they will turn towards Jesus (great commission).

In essence, diving as a general concept should be given the same type of caution that movies and other media provide, although the potency of diving in comparison shouldn't be ignored either, so people would need to keep in mind the dangerous power of the tools they are using. Granted, because of the extent of their power, they can also be used to simulate settings and stories that are favorable to Christianity in which case diving could be a highly influential evangelism technique.

(Note: with the rise of the Oculus Rift and accompanying technologies, the potential for a similar level of immersion occurring in our lifetime shouldn't be overlooked. Immersive media environments are extremely relevant to today's society)

Brain diving as a unique form of diving is something entirely different from the Christian perspective. Using this technology, the consciousness of individuals could potentially merge, fusing into a single consciousness that shares memories, personalities, and experiences in real-time. The question of how this affects God's judgment of one's morality needs to be broken up into three divisive scenarios: one in which the consciousnesses have this interaction and yet retain their individuality, one in which the identities are partially exchanged and another in which the two have truly fused, losing track of their sense of self.

When consciousnesses are separate, yet merged, the most important factor is the extent to which the two (or more) are sharing memories/experiences. Therefore, we'll be starting with the second case. Is it possible for the participants to get the owner of memories/experiences mixed up? If so, are they at least able to determine which ones are definitively their own? The reason it's important is this: say a person ends up with memories of wrongdoing that are not their own. Would that person be morally responsible for actions that they believed they had done, even if they were the actions of another? God, and most of society I suspect, would say otherwise. A person isn't to blame for a crime if they did not in fact commit it. In the same way, however, people who have committed crimes, but forget that they have because of the meshing process are still morally liable for those crimes in the same way that courts would still hold them responsible. The fact of the matter is, involving oneself in brain diving is an act that implies an understanding of these risks on the part of the participants. Therefore, people surrender their right to claim innocence in such cases because they knowingly endangered the integrity of their minds. In this sense, brain diving is akin to taking drugs or alcohol that can have detrimental, permanent effects on the brain, depending on the situation. The Bible clearly emphasizes that consuming alcohol to the point of damaging one's judgment is sinful in and of itself because of the irresponsible nature of the activity. This same moral claim applies to this form of brain diving.

What about when there is no risk of mixing one's identity with the other (the first case)? Can we still consider brain diving moral? Brain diving in this sense would be an extremely potent form of communication more akin to sense-sharing (which has already been covered previously) and the general concept of diving already addressed in this post. Brain diving of this kind involves communicating personal information directly via a person's sensory inputs (diving) and the information transmitted belongs to other people (sense-sharing). However, one element of difference is the intimacy with which brain diving has the potential to connect people. Brain diving allows people to see each other completely naked, in the fullest sense of the word. Physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually, the process allows someone complete access to another's very being. This type of intimacy is far more powerful than any kind of sexual act because it implies an intimate knowledge of sexual acts and much more on top of that. Sexual experiences are meant to be precious according to the Bible because of the shear degree to which it links people. When that connection is amplified, the effect is far more potent, and therefore should be regarded with even more care. Note that all of these comments hinge on the assumption that people will have no control over what it is that is shared, that the memories/experiences are shared almost instantaneously without regard to the will of the participants. If people have control over what is exchanged then brain diving itself becomes a glorified version of diving and sense-sharing combined together as mentioned before.

For the third case in which people's consciousnesses truly fuse together, we need to determine what status will be attributed to the souls of the individuals involved. Do the souls seem to fuse together? Do the people essentially "die" as a new person is "born" from the convoluted mass of memories and experiences? Or is it that the souls of the individuals still exist separately somehow, despite having a mixed consciousness? Well, we obviously wouldn't be able to determine whether the third situation was even occurring in the first place. If on the other hand we were in the first situation with fused souls - fused consciousnesses - then whatever past the individuals WERE accountable for they are now TOGETHER accountable for. The good and the bad of the one becomes the same for the other. However, if the people's sense of self literally "died", then the new person that sprung from the ashes would be a wholly new life, albeit one born of immoral destruction. So, either Christians would need to consider such brain dives to be sinful due to their termination of a person (digital-mesh suicide), or Christians would need to view the emerging consciousness as a joint party or organization since the activities of the one would be a reflection of the will of the whole.

When the children are then exploited by the government for their digital prowess in episode 11, we can categorize such behavior as someone with power (a functional mind) taking advantage of someone weaker (a damaged mind) which appears in contrast to numerous Biblical contexts that justify and protect the weak in the wake of the powerful, so we can assume that is immoral. But is it wrong for a society en masse to make use of digital prowess to such a degree that "gifted" individuals are reduced to machines, tools, or programs themselves? If the human element is forgotten, then the spirit of the "gifted" person is ruined. If, however, the person fails to make use of their abilities for the sake of others, they could potentially be similarly regarded as a person with a degraded spirit because they wouldn't be following up on God's desire for them to love and work for the glory of God and His people. Cyberization in general is simply an exaggeration of already-in-progress behaviors and social models that - when misused - prove their danger to God's work. Embedded to much in a fictional world = idolatry, laziness, and selfishness. Caring more for the work than for the people and the world that God created = idolatry.

In connecting these episodes, the common thread of cyberized interactions and their social parameters carve out the additional themes to be addressed. Diving is a powerful new communication device with all the ramifications of today's society and more. Cyberization - and the new types of interactions that go with it - will maintain this trend. The defining outlier Brain Diving stands out as a core, multi-faceted element of the GITS world, one which requires a significant amount of analysis into the nature, structure, and effects it would have in order to determine its corresponding ethical definition.